I don’t plan to write another science book, but I don’t plan not to. I do enjoy writing histories, and taking subjects that are generally dull and trying to make them interesting.

The remarkable position in which we find ourselves is that we don’t actually know what we actually know.

When you tell an Iowan a joke, you can see a kind of race going on between his brain and his expression.

I come from Des Moines. Somebody had to.

More than 300 million people in the world speak English and the rest, it sometimes seems, try to.

The whole of the global economy is based on supplying the cravings of two per cent of the world’s population.

I don’t plan to write another science book, but I don’t plan not to. I do enjoy writing histories, and taking subjects that are generally dull and trying to make them interesting.

My first rule of consumerism is never to buy anything you can’t make your children carry.

There are only three things that can kill a farmer: lightning, rolling over in a tractor, and old age.

I had always thought that once you grew up you could do anything you wanted – stay up all night or eat ice-cream straight out of the container.

I have long known that it is part of God’s plan for me to spend a little time with each of the most stupid people on earth.

Boston’s freeway system is insane. It was clearly designed by a person who had spent his childhood crashing toy trains.

There are things you just can’t do in life. You can’t beat the phone company, you can’t make a waiter see you until he’s ready to see you, and you can’t go home again.